The businessman who pleaded guilty to federal charges for paying then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin more than $72,000 in exchange for millions of dollars worth of city contracts took the stand Thursday and described a bribery scheme and coverup that started with an opening from Nagin's sons.

Rodney
Williams, former president of Three Fold Consultants, was the first witness to take the stand after opening statements were given.

Williams told jurors that in 2007, Three Fold Consultants responded to several request for proposals for lucrative city contracts. While Williams was awaiting a decision, he received a visit from Nagin's sons. They asked Williams if he'd consider investing in their granite countertop company, Stone Age, LLC.

Williams told jurors that he had been after city contracts since Nagin was sworn into office, but had been largely unsuccessful. Williams first tried taking Nagin on a fishing trip, and subsequently went on an economic development trip with Nagin to Brazil, to try and curry favor, he told jurors. So when Nagin's sons asked Williams to meet, Williams thought it would have been "suicide" to refuse.

In January of 2008, Williams paid a visit to the Stone Age headquarters, where he first met Nagin.

During that meeting, Nagin told Williams that he was "tapped out," and asked Williams and his business partners, Bassam Mekari and Tarek Elnaggar, to invest in his business, Williams testified. In exchange, Williams told the jury, Nagin offered to "take care of" the businessmen, who had months before responded to Request for Proposals for several lucrative city contracts Nagin was in charge of issuing.

Although his business partners initially resisted the idea, Williams told jurors that he was able to convince them.

"[Nagin] said if we considered investing the money into the
company he would take care of us," Williams told the jury. "I considered it as, he'd give us more city work.
I talked to my partners and convinced them it was a win-win on our behalf. It
wouldn't hurt us, only help us."

Williams and his partners each wrote a check -- $20,000 each -- from their personal accounts, Williams testified. In return, Nagin transferred a 4.5 percent ownership stake in Stone Age into a fake account.

When Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Coman asked if Williams was investing in Stone Age or paying a bribe, Williams said it was a bribe, adding that he set up a shell company to disguise the transaction.

"We were paying a bribe," Williams said. "We set up a shell company after we wrote the checks, as part of the coverup."

A few weeks later, at a Mardi Gras party, Williams said Nagin told him he'd kept his end of the deal: selecting Williams' firm for lucrative city contracts.

Williams told jurors that before the bribes, Three Fold Consultants was netting roughly $100,000 in city work. After the bribery scheme began, that number skyrocketed to more than $2 million.

Coman walked jurors through each of the 22 contracts Williams received as a result of the bribes he paid to Nagin, with Williams confirming both Nagin's and his own signature on the documents. In one particular instance in 2009, Williams admitted to facilitating a payment of $10,000 to Nagin's sons one day after Three Fold Consultants won a million-dollar contract.

Williams described how Mekari wrote a personal check for home improvements that Three Fold Consultants reimbursed.

Williams also told jurors that in 2010, he lied to federal investigators when asked about whether he'd ever given Nagin money. But now, he said, he's coming clean.

"I feel that I've done something I'm not proud of," Williams said. "It's been a long time dealing with it, and I didn't want to further prolong it. Quite frankly I'm glad it's over and I have a chance to face up to the things that I did that was wrong."

Williams has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. He faces up to 37 months in jail.

Just before 6 p.m., Coman finished questioning Williams, who will return Friday morning for cross-examination by Nagin's defense attorney Robert Jenkins.